Wednesday, April 23, 2014

MLB Advanced Media, the league’s digital arm, has released a baseball video game for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Apple mobile devices. The game itself, RBI Baseball ‘14, is fairly conventional, but its release is not: It marks the first time a major professional sports league has developed its own console game.

“MLBAM has done some games before, but online mobile games,” said Samit Sarkar, reporter for the video game news site Polygon. “It’s something new for a league to do a bigger console title like this.”

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I downloaded this game on my ipad. It's a disaster. I have yet to make it through an inning without a crash.

Known crash bugs at this point:

- finishing a NY vs BOS game in under 3 hours
- using less than 4 pitchers per team per game
- attendance totals over 15,000 in Tampa, Cleveland, Miami, or Kansas City
- attempting to swing away with a man on first and nobody out

I used to kick ass at RBI on the NES. Like throwing no hitters every time kind of dominating. I bought the RBI '14 game a couple of weeks back because my brother said it was great. If I spent more time with it, I would probably be okay at it. I've had my butt kicked more times than not, but whatever. I'm lucky to actually use my PS3 as a console maybe 1 or 2 hours a month. It's a kickass Netflix, Prime, and BluRay player (and honestly, that's why I bought it back in the day). I'm a terrible gamer these days and terribly out of practice.

All that said, my kids love that game. So there's that. But I will echo Andrew's point. Every time I have had the mercy rule called on me, the damn game has crashed. Which is cool, cause it doesn't count as a loss for me, but it's still irritating.

I get the sense that it will be a pretty fun game in the future, but it needs work.

I bought it for the iPhone and am having a terrible time making contact with the ball. It often disappears halfway to the plate, probably due to some sort of processing lag. It certainly messes up the timing on my end, and I would guess internally to the game processing as well. Granted, I have an old iPhone (4S), but if they're going to release it for the previous generation of technology, they should make sure it's playable. Anyone else have the same issue?

?? I have mlbtv via both appletv and playstation 3 and both work great

sorry your experience is negative.

The Apple TV and iPad app work great. The PS3 app freezes constantly, and at least once an inning, the video skips back 5 seconds. The last update made it unusable. There have been a lot of complaints in the MLB.TV forums.

The Apple TV and iPad app work great. The PS3 app freezes constantly, and at least once an inning, the video skips back 5 seconds. The last update made it unusable. There have been a lot of complaints in the MLB.TV forums.

It's been working a lot better for me the last two days. Knock on wood.

My review of the xbox version: It's fun for what is is: An homage to the NES classics without many features. If it were a $10 game, I'd love it. As a $20 game, I feel a little ripped off. Games take 20 to 25 minutes, which is a plus for me. Playing with a friend is a lot of fun. I'm not sure how much I will keep playing on my own. It really annoys me that they don't keep stats. If I am going to play a season, it would be nice to know something other than wins and losses.

I am still glad it exists and that I bought it. I used to love baseball games, especially MVP Baseball. I've had an xbox 360 for almost a decade though, which means I haven't played a new baseball game in almost a decade. And that sucks.

Any games that can be played on a regular PC? Last big time gaming experience was Earl Weaver, and then High Heat Baseball...

It's a managing/general managing game rather than a pitching and hitting game, but Out of the Park (OOTP) is great and capable of wonderful depth. You'll start playing and pretty soon you haven't bathed for three days and you're worried because your low-A backup catcher isn't developing like you'd hoped he would. OOTP isn't at the level of Championship Manager (a true wrecker of marriages), but it's still an excellent sports sim.

The Apple TV and iPad app work great. The PS3 app freezes constantly, and at least once an inning, the video skips back 5 seconds. The last update made it unusable. There have been a lot of complaints in the MLB.TV forums.

This is my experience as well.

Someone just needs to make a version of MVP Baseball 05 with updated rosters.

The biggest thing I miss about MVP is being able to move around in the batter's box. I don't know if it actually made a difference in the hitting, but it felt like it did.

On MLB.tv, I don't like that the new version seemingly doesn't allow you to adjust the picture resolution. It seems like it keeps trying to force-feed me the highest quality picture despite repeated instances of buffering. I'd much prefer a lower resolution if it means a (mostly) uninterrupted stream, which prior years' versions allowed you to adjust.

i migrated from an old 3GS to a new Samsung Galaxy S4 and love it, but the Mlb At Bat audio feeds just keep cutting out now. I never had that problem on the iphone, but it cuts out a lot now. Shame cause the rest of the app seems good, not sure its worth the $$ if i can barely hear the audio now :(